A new OASIS technical committee is being formed. The OASIS Rights
Language Technical Committee has been proposed by the following members
of OASIS: Thomas DeMartini, ContentGuard; John Erickson, Hewlett
Packard; Brad Gandee, ContentGuard; Thomas Hardjono, Verisign; M.
Paramasivam, Microsoft; David Parrott, Reuters; and Hari Reddy,
ContentGuard.

The proposal for a new TC meets the requirements of the OASIS TC Process
(see http://oasis-open.org/committees/process.shtml), and is appended to
this message. The proposal, which includes a statement of purpose, list
of deliverables, and proposed schedule, will constitute the TC's
charter. The TC Process allows these items to be clarified (revised) by
the TC members; such clarifications (revisions), as well as submissions
of technology for consideration by the TC and the beginning of technical
discussions, may occur no sooner than the TC's first meeting.

To become a member of this new TC you must 1) be an employee of an OASIS
member organization or an Individual member of OASIS; 2) notify the TC
chair, Hari Reddy (hari.reddy@contentguard.com), of your intent to
participate at least 15 days prior to the first meeting; and 3)
participate in the first meeting on 21 May 2002. You should also
subscribe to the TC's discussion list. Note that membership in OASIS TCs
is by individual, and not by organization. You must be eligible for
participation at the time you time you notify the chair.

The private mail list rights@lists.oasis-open.org is for committee
discussions. TC members as well as any other interested OASIS members
should subscribe to the list by going to the mail list web page at
http://lists.oasis-open.org/ob/adm.pl, or by sending a message to
rights-request@lists.oasis-open.org with the word "subscribe" as the
body of the message. (Note that subscribing to the mail list does not
make you a member of the TC; to become a member you must contact the TC
chair as described in the preceeding paragraph.)

The name of this technical committee shall be the OASIS Rights Language
Technical Committee.

Technical Committee Purpose

The Internet has spawned a revolution in how content is distributed and
services are accessed. This has fueled the development of technologies
to manage, secure, control, and automate the flow of content and the
access to services over the Internet, as well as other digital
distribution techniques. Digital Rights Management (DRM) is the common
term collectively associated with such technologies. If we consider the
DRM lifecycle or workflow for digital content and services, we see that
the exchange of rights and conditions information is required between
the entities in the workflow or at each step of the lifecycle. We also
realize that expressing rights can be simple or very complex depending
upon the requirements of the entire workflow and business models.

Thus, a common standard rights language that can be shared among the
participants in this digital workflow is required. This common rights
language will facilitate the interoperability of the systems that manage
the creation, distribution and consumption of these digital works and
services. It will also be an integral tool in declaring and
implementing trust and authentication mechanisms.

The need for a standard rights language has been recognized in a number
of organizations that develop technical standards for different types of
content in many different domains. For example:

Additionally, fields such as healthcare (HIPPA compliance) and financial
services (SEC regulations compliance) have now recognized the need for
the ability to express usage and access rights for documents, records
and services.

However, typically each is focused on a specific market or media type.
None have addressed the need for interoperability of the components that
manage the creation, distribution and consumption of this content from
one system to a different system within and across these different
domains. OASIS has the broad membership base, open development process
and neutrality as to content type or format that make it the logical
home for the development, maintenance and promotion of a broadly
applicable standard rights language.

Purpose

The purpose of this TC is to:

Continue work previously done by ContentGuard, Inc. on XrML to define
the industry standard for a rights language that supports a wide variety
of business models and has an architecture that provides the flexibility
to address the needs of the diverse communities that have recognized the
need for a rights language. The language needs to continue to be:

Comprehensive: Capable of expressing simple and complex rights

Generic: Capable of describing rights for any type of digital content or service

Precise: Communicates precise meaning to all components of the system

Interoperable: Comprehends it is part of a tightly integrated system

Agnostic: To platform, media type or format

Define a governance and language extension development process for
the language that comprehends maintaining an evergreen language while
minimizing the impact of change on all market participants.

Define the relationship with other complementary standards efforts
within OASIS (e.g. SAML). Liaison with standards bodies external to
OASIS that are working on complementary technologies (security, PKI, web
services)

Define relationship and establish liaisons with standards bodies that
have identified the need for a rights language. This activity will
promote the maintenance of a Core architecture that provides the basis
for interoperability across different content domains as well as broader
applicability of the tools and applications that create and consume
rights expressions.

ContentGuard will submit the eXtensible rights Markup Language™ (XrML™)
Version 2.0 at the initial meeting of the TC. ContentGuard has
copyrights to the XrML 2.0 specification and schema (including previous
releases) along with a trademark on the name "XrML". ContentGuard also
owns US Patents 5,638,443, 5,634,012, 5,715,403, and 5,629,980 which
have claims that may necessarily be infringed by the use of the
contribution. ContentGuard will grant OASIS permission to use the
trademark "XrML" for the use of the TC and associated promotion and
marketing. ContentGuard's contribution will be submitted with the
following intellectual property rights statement: "ContentGuard agrees
to offer a license, on reasonable and nondiscriminatory terms, to use
any patent claim of US Patents 5,638,443, 5,634,012, 5,715,403, and
5,629,980 and which is necessarily infringed by the use of the
contribution."

Relationship to Existing OASIS TCs

We would anticipate developing relationships with the following OASIS TCs:

Security Services TC: XrML and SAML complement each other, in the
sense that one can implement systems that interpret XrML expressions
using the SAML framework.

Access Control Markup Language TC: While XrML and XACML are closely
related in terms of controlling resource access and usage, the scope of
their applicability is very different.

ebXML TCs: Given the potential applications for XrML in modeling
contractual relationships, there are potential synergies between the
ebXML and Rights Language TCs.

To release the rights language Schema with supporting implementation information.

To develop and execute governance process for managing the continuing improvements to the language.

To provide liaisons to other complementary standards bodies.

Policies defining the creation of extensions to the language

Definition of a subset or mapping of the rights language for mobile consumer electronic devices.

Definition of common methods for integration of the rights language with metadata standards, content/service identification standards, and content referencing standards.

Definition of common methods for integration of the rights language with authentication, crypto and PKI standards for econtent distribution and for web services.

The deliverables will be accomplished in 3 Phases:

Phase 1: Requirements Gathering and TC Structure Development (3 months)
Enhance language specification taking requirements from other standards
initiatives and content/web service value chain participants such as
content/web service owners, technology providers, and service providers.
Develop Governance Process for management of the language.

Phase 2: Language Development and Initial Language Release (3 months)
Develop use cases and scenarios. Develop integration models to other
standards initiatives. Develop sample value chain models employing
various features of the language. Develop/release working draft of the
language for review. Release the language with supporting
implementation information and guides based on feedback.

Phase 3: Evergreen Process - ongoing. Develop/execute process for
continuous improvement of the language based upon guidelines developed
in Phase 1. Continue to provide liaisons to complementary standards
initiatives.

Based on the above tentative schedule, the goal is to release the rights
language (Phase 2) 6 months from the start of the TC. During Phases
1-3, initiatives such as interoperability guides and test suites to
assist in deployments will be developed/released.

Language in which the TC will conduct business

English

Date and time of first meeting

The initial face to face meeting is scheduled for May 21, 2002 in
Bethesda, Maryland at the ContentGuard offices.

Meeting schedule

Meeting schedule for the first year following the formation of the TC: Bi-weekly conference calls; Quarterly face-to-face meetings.

Proposers

Names, affiliation, and electronic mail addresses of persons eligible to
participate in a TC and committed to the meeting schedule and purpose: